Month: January 2014

Chwarae Teg (http://chwaraeteg.com/) are running a great campaign to highlight all the men that are involved and helping to support their drive to improve the economic conditions for Women. Here’s a little clipping from today’s (27/1/2014) Western Mail

Western Mail – Chwarae Teg

Supportive Men To Be Highlighted – Chwarae Teg & Western Mail Campaign

*Anne-Marie Imafidon (born 1990) is a British computing, mathematics and language child prodigy.[1] She is one of the youngest to pass two GCSEs in two different subjects while in primary school. She passed two GCSE Examinations (in Mathematics and Information technology) at the age of 11.

The TES site has a great article on how Michael Gove has branded teaching about word processing and spreadsheets in schools about as useful as making students learn “how to send a telex”, despite the fact that tens of thousands of students currently study the subject.

The education secretary dismissed the previous ICT curriculum as being “obsolete”, even though the most recent figures on the number of students sitting ICT at GCSE had gone up last year.

The comments have left experts concerned that the continuing attack on ICT by the politician has lumbered students with an effectively worthless qualification.

Microsoft to discount xbox and train 160,000 primary school teachers for new Computing curriculum

Microsoft to train 160,000 Teachers

Microsoft is implementing a new training program designed to help primary school teachers prepare for the introduction of Computing onto the curriculum in September 2014.

The ‘First Class Computing’ program will help 160,000 non-specialist primary school teachers learn the necessary skills to be able to teach Computing in schools and delivers this through a series of road shows and the introduction of new materials to ensure teachers are ready.
“We welcomed the news of the new Computing curriculum alongside others in the industry because it is absolutely critical for the future success of our young people. The challenge now is to ensure that primary teachers are equipped to deliver it by September,” says Steve Beswick, Senior Director of Education, Microsoft UK.

Adam Kumpf made it using a Teagueduino and a few inputs and outputs to put together a physical side-scrolling video game. To control it, there’s a knob on the side. As time advances the game gets faster and faster

Fraser also says 5th graders in Vietnam are so skilled, they can do the same programming 11th graders in the U.S. can do, which means that the 11th graders in Vietnam significantly outpace their American peers. Indeed, they’re skilled enough, says Fraser, to succeed in Google’s interview process.